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Designing and Developing Charts For Translators

The terms chart and graph often are used interchangeably. To most Washington D.C. Chinese Translation workers, a chart is a figure that illustrates relationships (quantitative or cause-effect), but is not plotted on a coordinate system. The most common charts are pie charts, organizational charts, and flow charts.

Pie or Circle Charts. A pie or circle chart partitions a whole into its parts and provides an image of the parts-whole relationship. The parts of a pie chart must add up to 100 percent

Place your pie chart where it belongs in your discussion. Introduce it, explain it, and credit data sources. Though not as precise as a tabular list, a pie chart draws attention more dramatically than a list of numbers would.

Organizational Charts. An organizational chart partitions the administrative functions of an organization. It ranks each member in order of authority and responsibility as that member relates to other members and departments. Usually, solid lines show direct lines of authority; broken lines indicate indirect relationships. Some Boston Translation companies use circle charts to depict how authority and responsibility flow from the center.

Flow Charts. A flow chart traces a process from beginning to end. In outlining the specific steps of a manufacturing or refining process, the flow chart moves from raw materials to finished product.

Band Charts. Except for shadings, band charts, are similar to line or curve graphs. Like line or curve graphs, band charts show changes, or trends, over a given period. Band charts can begin at any intersecting point on the coordinate grid. Band charts are excellent for showing general trends or relationships. But as you can see, they can’t represent precise data.

Pictorial Charts or Pictograms. Pictorial charts illustrate numerical relationships through pictures. They can represent the same data that bar graphs do, but pictograms do so more dramatically. You can, for instance, use a pictorial chart to illustrate populations by using symbols of people. Or you can show housing starts through the years with small house symbols. Be sure your symbols are the same size and proportion. Otherwise, readers might misinterpret the symbol’s value.